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1.2.11-Columbina
Brick!Club 1.2.11 What He Does IT’S LIKE THE CLIMAX OF A HEIST MOVIE BUT IN PROSE. SO STRESSFUL. And with a healthy dose of heartbreak because DON’T DO IT WOLVERINE. This is the second time Nature has stepped in to try to guide Valjean, first with the creepy sky, and now with the moon on the Bishop’s face. Is this because God / Nature has a special interest in Valjean, or should we all be looking for spiritual hints from the weather? …There I go again, sounding glib when I actually really mean it. I mean, he talks about Nature desiring to make “us” reflect, so to some degree it’s meant to be a universal phenomenon, but it does seem to be happening to Valjean with remarkable frequency. Is it simply because of the importance of this night in his life? Or do these hints come to us all this often, but we mostly ignore them? We continue on our theme of Valjean torn between the animal instincts he’s lived by for so long and developing a human conscience. Which is understandably tough. You can almost imagine the little cartoon angel and devil on his shoulders. Actually, let’s bring some religion in here. I was talking to Pentecostal Friend once about the nature of evil (as you do when there’s multiple empty wine bottles on the table and you’re the ones who put them there) and whether there is an external force (call it what you will) that draws us to sin, which I’m a bit not so much on, mostly because of the way people use it as an excuse rather than any theological basis, and she pointed out how temptation can really feel like an outside force pulling us towards what we know we shouldn’t do, which was, I had to hand it to her, kind of an accurate description (of me when I want hot chips). It’s not something Hugo even suggests, probably because he’s running with this whole blame-society thing, which is a-okay by me because it aligns with my personal opinions, but still. Idk, if you’re going to have Jesus reaching out to him so unsubtly, maybe throw in a glance at the other side of that equation? I mean, I personally am all on board the “God vs Man” train rather than the “Good vs Evil” one, but it could have been an interesting idea to throw in there. Commentary Doeskin-pantaloons Perhaps Hugo doesn’t feel the need to throw in a supernatural force drawing man towards evil (in contrast to God drawing man towards good) because he subscribing to the Rousseauian (is that even a word? no matter how I spell it it looks wrong) view that it is society which corrupts man. Therefore, with society already pulling man towards evil, it’s God which must pull him towards good. Columbina (reply to Doeskin-pantaloons) Oh, absolutely. Which is also what I agree with, well, you know, more than the alternative. And it might just be because I haven’t done my Rousseauian reading (let’s make it a word) that I’m kind of curious if that would have been the prevalent view of the day, or if most people went with supernatural forces as the source of evil?